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We ride to tear the Frozen Empire asunder!

After hastily announcing that I will be releasing Doomdark’s Revenge on the 7th I can now confirm that the actual release date will be the Monday 17th Feb.

The main reason for this change is purely logistics. I have to get the website ready to go, PR and Press Packs, Screenshots, Video, submit all versions, and create the store for direct selling.

However, the other reason that I hadn’t taken into account until thinking about submission congestion, is that, during the week of the 17th, it would have been Mike Singleton’s 63rd birthday. So it feels appropriate.

The iOS version is ready to go, and I intend to submit to Apple tonight. Apple usually take 7 days to approve a new submission. If there are any problems, then I would likely miss the 7th. The real area of concern is that from Feb 1st, Apple are insisting that all submissions are done using XCode5 and target iOS7 as the build SDK. In theory this shouldn’t be a problem, however in order to guaranty this, I need to build with the latest version of the Marmalade SDK 7.1.1 and as this version is only BETA at the moment I have slight concerns. I am currently not able to submit to MAC Appstore because of a Marmalade issue, and that affects my confidence in it.

The Android version appears to be ready. The first initial sweep has been done and a few small visual bugs stamped out. The game UI now seems stable across resolutions so I would suspect that supported devices will be the same as with The Lords of Midnight. I don’t foresee any issues moving forward. The turn around time on Google Play is such that I still have plenty of time to fix anything that crops up.

I have done a Blackberry build, and it all seems to be running in the simulator without issue. I need to perform an actual device test but again I don’t foresee any issues. There were some initial problems with the Q10 720×720 resolution but they have been ironed out. BTW: this version will allow the Q10 to rotate and I will include this fix in The Lords of Midnight ASAP.

Samsung and Amazon builds are just packaging. So again, I don’t foresee any issues.

Windows and OSX builds should be good, as this is how I develop. I expect to hand over a master to Fastspring and GoG.com early next week.

The only issue with the OSX version is that it is unlikely to be available in the MAC Appstore for a while. This is due to the aforementioned issue with the Marmalade SDK and OSX Mavericks. If the issue is not fixed soon, and I have a window of opportunity before the 17th ( preferably by the 10th ), I will install an OSX Mountain Lion machine and attempt to build the app. The OSX version will however be available direct or through GoG.com, where I don’t need to release a signed app.

Once the release is out there, I intend to revisit Windows Phone 8 version of both Doomdark’s Revenge and The Lords of Midnight.

11 thoughts on “We ride to tear the Frozen Empire asunder!”

Well done! Don’t care how you deploy to Mac, so long as you deploy! That will be the first version I buy, though IOS will be bought as soon as it is available. I just want the first one I play to be in glorious iMac 27″ HD goodness!

Can’t wait for the release trying not to count the days
to the release of Doomdark’s Revenge.
I always loved the way the various lords seemed to have a free will and would seek out their liege or foes. It always added an unpredictability to the game which I preferred over Lords Of Midnight.
For me it was quite ironic that the announcement to release was made on my birthday, with the actual release being on Mike Singleton’s birthday.
Anyway wishing all the developers of Midnight, Doomdark and the fans all the best.

Thank you Sir, it’s a priceless job you’re doing for us old boys out there. LOM and DDR taught me my first smatter of English when I was a kid back in the 80s, and I’ve been utterly delighted to find out that Mr. Singleton had actually been teaching English before devoting himself to game designing. (My addiction to the word ‘utterly’, especially, has been a long-standing one – I still use it about twice as often as necessary, and my hair is grey now). Wish I had all the time I used to spend on Mr. Singleton’s games.